On The Inheritance And Development Of The Northern Song Dynasty

From the development process of the Seal Character, we can know that the Seal Character geminates during the pre-Qin period and Hans; the Jade Chopsticks Seal newly develops during the Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties; during Songs, Yuan and Ming dynasties, the Seal Character is firstly put into the Cursive Script and in Qing Dynasty, the Seal Character ushers its heyday of development with the attendance of the artists. The Northern Song, as a guiding bridge in breaking the constraint of tradition during the Qing and Ming Dynasties after inheriting “the methods of Li Si and Li Yangbing”, plays an important role in the development of calligraphy. In the whole development process of the Seal Character, many aspects promote the development and inheritance of the Seal Character in the Northern Song. For example,the imperial households are good at calligraphy so that they award an amount of seal characters to their meritorious statesmen, epigraphic experts make great efforts in studying the characters on the ancient vessels and calligraphers still play an active role under some pressures.Northern Song's seal characters is the active period of history of Chinese calligraphy.It is very important for the development of Chinese calligraphy and the supplementary of theoretical system.This thesis, basing on the society, politics and culture in the initial stage of the Northern Song, associates with the new application of the Seal Character by the seal calligraphers and some other calligraphers and the influence of the epigraphy in order to explain and analyze how the Seal Character develops and how it effects the latter Seal Character during the whole Northern Song. The theme chapter of the thesis contains three parts. The first part discusses the social and cultural reasons about the development and inheritance of the Seal Character in Northern Song. At the beginning of the Northern Song, many social and political factors, such as valuing martial arts above literary talent, the popularities of the amount of the seal characters and advocating Confucianism, provide the inheritance of the Seal Character with proper reasons and opportunities. The second part mainly talks about Xu Xuan's“inheritance” about “the methods of Li Si and Li Yangbing”, Zhang Youzhi and Shi Mengying's inheritance about the Jade Chopsticks Seal and the effects epigraphy plays on literati and calligraphers. The third part mainly stresses on the influence and meaning of the Seal Character in the Northern Song. The new breakthrough of Seal Character in Yuan, Ming and Qing will not exist if there is no inheritance anddevelopment about the Seal Character in Qin and Tang. Therefore, the Seal Character in the Northern Song, as a connective link, plays an important role in the development of Seal Character.